Friday, February 17, 2012

Writing Speculative Fiction: Part VI--In Conclusion

I'm going to do a series of posts on speculative fiction for a class
I'll be teaching at an upcoming writing conference. Hope you all will
find some value here!I admit I'm biased, but I think speculative fiction is one of the funnest genres to write in. It allows you to stretch your imagination to the limits. To dream up every possibility and even every impossibility. Speculative fiction can take to the ends of the universe and back again, or to places that exist only in our dreams. You can ride a dragon, travel through a black hole or talk to a centaur. It's a versatile genre too. You can writeromances, mysteries, thrillers, adventures, historicals and more that all fall under the speculative fiction umbrella.

Perhaps the reason that I love spec-fic so much is that it gives us a chance to view the human condition through a completely different lens, and in reading about beings and places entirely different from our own, we gain insight into who we are and what it means to be human. So I say, "Long live speculative fiction!"

10 comments:

I love fantasy because I like to escape the world we live in. I do enjoy paranormal stuff that's popular these days, written in what's supposed to be our world, but a well-crafted fantasy world just takes me away. And I love writing and creating my own worlds because while there might be some research to do, it's largely just you. (Me.) I don't have to do any research I'd find boring or onerous if I don't want to. I can make up history rather than have to stick to what's in a textbook. And the bounds are limitless in fantasy, so long as there's a reason for everything established somewhere even if it doesn't make it into the books.

For some reason when I read this I started wondering . . . "what would it be like to ride a dragon through a black hole to meet an annoying centaur?" That's the fun part of speculative fiction. If we can come up with some world building that somehow supports our wild wonderings, we can write a story about them.

The original blip of an idea that began my First Civilization's Legacy series is "What would happen of a dragon met a Stuka in aerial combat?" which occurred while pondering speculative fiction works by Roger Zelazny and Harry Turtledove.

In what other genre could such occur?

I fully agree with you, Angie, in your assertion: "Long live speculative fiction!"